


mercy, mercy me

by burnsidesjulia



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Bad Davenport Characterization, Character Study, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Gen, Major character death - Freeform, Recreational Drug Use, Suicidal Thoughts, it happens offscreen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 07:52:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15529614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burnsidesjulia/pseuds/burnsidesjulia
Summary: where did all the blue skies go?poison is the wind that blows from the north and south and easton a world doomed to perish, merle and davenport share a moment.





	mercy, mercy me

The stars hang brighter in the sky on this world, each a tiny sun ready to swell, burst, die. Barry’s done some research as to why that is and about what exactly is wrong with this world and the sky around it, but Merle can’t remember that shit right now. He’s pretty sure Barry’s explanation involved a vague head shake, though, so. He watches silently as one dances its way down from the sky, and he quietly mimics the sound of an explosion.

There’s a soft flick, and the dark of the night is split open by the orange of a flame. Merle can just barely see Davenport’s face, illuminated for a moment by buttery yellow light. It flicks out just as fast as it came, and Merle counts to five. Davenport is already breathing out the smoke on three.

“You never hold it long enough, Skipper,” he says without much conviction. He’s way too high for that. Davenport moves in a way that might’ve been a shrug in the light. “Gnome lungs,” he excuses. “Very small.” He coughs lightly.

“Dwarf lungs are smaller.” Merle can’t prove that, but he’s pretty sure he’s right. Davenport’s a forest gnome. He must be used to breathing in all sorts of plant shit, and so smoke shouldn’t be any different.

He doesn’t say that. He watches another star shudder and fall away.

The Hunger will be here in a week, and they haven’t found the light.

“This world was totally boned before we even got here,” Taako had argued. “We should just take a chill year.” But Davenport stood straight up, out of his chair and put his foot down. “We won’t,” he said. “We promised to never let another world burn.” Whenever he speaks like that, the whole crew falls silent, and he seems so much bigger than he is. So much bigger than he seems now, sitting cross-legged on a threadbare blanket out on the Starblaster’s deck.

A breeze blows, and the smell of weed rushes back toward Merle. He groans, fumbles for the pipe, finally finds it and casts Holy Flame to light it up. The bowl lights up in a brilliant swirl of blue and green for just a moment before Merle ends the spell.

Davenport is looking at him. “That’s where all your spell slots go?” he asks, almost teasing, and Merle can’t hold back a smile, loose and easy. Davenport is never so laid back when he’s sober. “Bite me, captain,” he responds when he finally lets the smoke escape his lungs - on a slow count to five, of course - but they both know what Merle really means by that. Kind of, at least. Maybe he’d know better if he were sober.

That breeze keeps blowing. A grouping of stars explodes apart like seeds on a dandelion.

Merle takes a second hit when Davenport does not request that he return the pipe. He points up toward the sky and says, “The stars.”

“They’re pretty,” Davenport answers. They reflect in his eyes, tiny pinpricks of light that each fade out, one by one.

“Sure,” Merle says. He’s forgotten what he was going to say. He sets the pipe back down and lies down.

He wishes he had a pillow. He wishes he had a beer. He wishes Magnus hadn’t died earlier in the cycle. He almost misses the way he’d cough up a lung on every hit.

They don’t really know how Magnus died. They found his legs still standing upright, but the top half of his body reduced to white ash. Barry died the same way.

They thought it was just humans, then. Lucretia started staying inside a lot. Then Taako died, too.

“Hey, Merle,” comes Davenport’s voice, almost sing-song. Merle sings back, “Wha-at,” forgetting that Davenport doesn’t see this connection in his head. Davenport falls silent, and then breaks into a laugh. Merle beams, and his smile knocks another star down from the sky. It falls closer to them, close enough that he can see the impact. Boom. White smoke erupts from the ground.

Davenport’s laugh is high and grating, just this side of annoying. Merle likes it. He doesn’t hear it often enough.

What was he thinking about?

Oh.

How he wishes he had a pillow.

Davenport’s laughter fades to the background, and Merle forgets that isn’t just the sound of the world settling until it abruptly stops. Everything goes silent except the faroff whistle of another star dying.

“Woah,” Merle says. He doesn’t explain himself, and he’s not sure he could if he’d been asked to.

Davenport reaches for the pipe again. Not much is said, which is fine. 

Some nights, the whole crew would come out here like this. Lup would light a fire, and they’d sit around it and drink and smoke and make merry like they weren’t all in constant danger. Like the sky wasn’t splitting open behind them.

On those nights, the deck of the Starblaster sounded like a home. Tonight, it sounds like a wake.

Merle likes sitting here with Davenport nonetheless.

Davenport breathes out on the count of two this time. Merle nudges him slightly. “I bet you’re not even getting high from that shit.”

“I am,” Davenport assures him. Merle thinks his voice is too steady for that to be true. He’s seen Davenport blazed beyond his mind before, to the point where he could only say his own name. It’s funny, how that goes. He can’t imagine his captain reduced to a singularity.

“Davenport,” he breathes, nose pinched. It’s a poor imitation of his voice, but Davenport catches his drift. He drops his chin toward his chest and says, “Merle,” in a gruff manner. How strange it is, to think of something powerful enough to turn their dozens upon dozens of years together into a single word. How impossible and sad. They blink slow and time drifts by. They watch each other smile through the dark.

The dark, caught by ballooning stars. The dark, which will descend soon enough.

Merle shakes his head. That’s enough of that poetry bullshit.

But just maybe Merle’s a bit more poetic when he’s stoned. That would make sense, or at least it might make sense to someone else vaguely stoned. But moments like these? They definitely get him closer to Pan, he thinks. A little closer to godliness. He’s already basically immortal. Why the hell not?

He wishes someone had survived, but everyone’s gone this cycle. There’s just the three of them left, just Merle, Davenport and Lucretia. And there’s still a world out there, already being attacked by something unknown. Already doomed to consumption.

Turns out the world will burn, anyway.

Davenport stands off the blanket. He walks to the edge of the Starblaster, and leans through the railing. Merle watches from afar.

“You ever thought about jumping from here?” Davenport asks. They’re nearly a mile off the ground.

“I don’t know Feather Fall,” Merle scoffs, though he’s fairly sure Davenport doesn’t, either. Davenport turns back to him. He puts his hands up, and like an angry god his movement shakes three more stars down. The sky is getting dull tonight. He hopes, for what may be the first time, that the Hunger comes before the week’s end.

“I wanna rip this outta me, Merle,” he says, his voice a little giddy, his hands grasping for the sky. He clenches his fists above him. “Tear out everything that’s still glowing in there.”

“You are high,” Merle answers, because he doesn’t know what else to say and because that’s the only plausible explanation that he likes enough to consider. Merle doesn’t understand Davenport, probably because he’s just not like Davenport. He’s not angry or sad or bitter about losing their world. He’s unscathed, to say the least. He had family on that world that they lost to the Hunger. He had people he loved. And now he doesn’t, so he figures there’s no use crying over it, be it spilled milk or lost galaxies. But Davenport is staring off the edge like the ground is beckoning to him, and another star falls, marks a target on the ground for him to aim toward.

He’ll just come back in the next cycle, Merle thinks. Or he won’t. One way or the other, he waits for Davenport to jump and fulfill the needs of that animal which so clearly lives in the back of his chest.

“I want it to get dark,” Davenport says, smaller now. “I’m so tired of all this brightness.” He sits down facing the guard railing. “I want to be angry, Merle. But I don’t know how.”

“Try talking to John a couple times,” Merle jokes. “You’ll get the hang of it.” As soon as he says it, he wishes he hadn’t. He watches Davenport in black and white.

Merle walks close to him on light feet. When he steps too hard, the sky sheds again.

“We’ve earned a little wrath, Captain,” he says. “Own it.”

Davenport’s eyes are dark, even in the half-light. Nothing reflects in them. And then he smiles, wordless.

“I’ll remember that,” he says, but it comes from somewhere beyond his mouth and his throat and his vocal chords. It comes from his heart, Merle thinks, and he sounds so much more like Merle’s captain now.

Davenport heads inside. He replaces the pipe by Merle and leaves him in silence.

A star crumbles out of the sky like wet sand in a grasping fist. Merle reaches for the pipe again, and breathes out on three.

**Author's Note:**

> honest? i only posted this because a friend advised me to. i only feel ok about this, but since you read it, thank you so much. kudos, comments, bookmarks, even just reads are appreciated. i read them all and think about it lots. you folks drive me
> 
> im on tumblr @dungeondyke! follow for taz silliness and aesthetics!


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